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6 Fort Collins Coloradoan August 1976 Big Thompson Canyon more than passageway to Estes Big Thompson Canyon - unUJ the night Of July 31, 1916 - was a scenic, often rock. walled route which thousands of O:lloradans and lourtsts traveled each summer to the mountain re~rt of Estes Park. 'The canyon, of course, has been much more than a spectacular passageway to Estes Park. lt has been dotted with homes some of them sturdy, winterized bUlldlng~ and some merely cabins for weekend use. Many people have fished In the sparkHng waters of the Big Thompson RJver. Places of business along the canyon have offered food, lodging and souvenirs. If some buJldlngs were too close to the river, 'owners probably thought seeing and hearing the rushing water was worth the risk of flooding. No story of the river Is complete without a mention of the Colorado-Big Thompson Projeet, which brtngs water for power and irrigation from the Western to the Eastern Slope. (Another article In th1s edition gives detaJled facts about the project. I Bob Berling, project manager for the Bureau of Reclamation at Loveland, said plans began In the late 1930s and constnJcUon started in the 1940s. The first water diversion came at about the endol World War II. '!HE LAST minor parts of the project were finished about 1957 or 1958 Berling said. Even with the building of Olympus Dam at Estes Park and a diversion dam at the NarTOWS, the course of the Big Thompson River was not really changed, he saId. The total cost of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project was $162 million. The road along the Big Thompson River - U.S. Highway 34 - was an excellent two- lane pavt'd highway with a number of three-lane passing sections. But the road was not always an excellent two or three-lane highway. Ruth Stauffer says in her book, This Was Estes Park, "a hundred years ago there was no road up the Big 'Thompson Canyon. Not unW 1903 was a track blasted through the Narrows. There was, however, a lrall which later became a road for the early homesteaders from Loveland to Estes Park by way of Rattlesnake Park. ThIs rough and rugged route lay about four miles south of the Big Thompson. It skirted Bald Mount.a1n and Pole Hill and then descended to the Park by the valley now known as the Crocker Ranch." Ruth Stauffer, a natlve of this slate, is a retired college and university English teacher. Her 1976 paperback OOok is avaUable from the Estes Park Area Historical Museum (and probably elsewhere). A toll road to Estes Park from Lyons had been opened In 18715 and Is described by Ms. Stauffer as the first road to the park. A FORT COLLINS resident who remembers traveling up the Big Thompson Canyon road the year after It was opened b Gertrode Randleman of 1090 EI1t.abeth Street. It isn't strange that the ouUng stands out in her mind. The trip was made with a horse and buggy a.'1d took two days. Mrs. Randleman said, "When we went up In 1904 we stayed overnight at the Forks Hotel at the present Drake. I remember there were mostly corduroy bridges with poles that rattled and the horses hated them. From the hotel, we went up the North Fork (Dev1l's Gulch Road) to the Lester Hotel, which was on a plateau above what became Glen Haven. The Lester Hotel . burnedanerafewyears." From the hotel, Mrs. RAndleman recalled, travelers went over a hill and were in Estes Park. However, the hill didn't have the switchbacks that the later Dev1l's Gulch Road has had. After two nights at the Lester, the party made the trip home entirely by the Big Thompson road and again broke the journey \lo1th a night at the Forks. She added that the Forks, or Drake, Hotel was located against a hill with the road between It and the river. The hotellncluded a store, as a place of lodging In a mountain canyon onen does. Mrs. Randleman remembers the Half- way House, a dance haJl in the canyon below the Forks Hotel. She had meals there sometimes. ANOTHER PERSON who mentioned the Halfway House was Martha Trimble of 1909 Stover Street, a professor of Englbh at Colorado State University. As a girl at Fort Collins High School, she looked forward to attending dances at the hall atter she en. tered college, because fraternities and sororities held some of their parties at the popular Ha1rway House. However, she said it burned in the early 1930s and she never got there. Mrs. Randleman spoke about Grandpa's and Grandma's Retreat (a cottage and outhouse) In the canyon. The property belonged to the late Olive Ludlow AJ'ld earlier to her parents. Mrs. Randleman said, "When the fancy, paved road was bullt. that bend In the high- way was cut off, but they lea an access road to the cottage. It was there before the recent flood; I don't know if it Is there now." She added, "There weren't very many cottages In the earlier days when I went UP Sidelights ~,*J.i i~ By Betty Woodworth the canyon,but several were pretty close to the road (and the river). You could rent cabins In the Estes area, of course, and I think maybe there were a tew along the canyon that you could rent. Stanley Steamers, owned by the Stanley Hotel people, took any passengers who wanted to ride up the canyon, as I remember. I rode in the steamers. " . For a short time there was talk of electric rallroad service in Big Thompson Canyon. AN ARTICLE In the Jan. 13, 1904, Weekly CourIer said, "Denver capitalists will spend about $300,000 In the construction of an electric raUway between Loveland and Estes Park, says the Denver TImes." However, the horse and automobile road left IUtle room for railroad tracks and the project was dropped. Ansel Watrous, whose Hlstoryof Larimer Cbunty was published in 1911, refers to the steam-powered sutomoblles In his book. He wrote, "the population of Estes Park gradually Increased unW 1903, when the Big Thompson Canyon Road from Loveland to the Park was completed. . .A dally line ot automobile steamers, carrying the U.S. maU, now cotulect Loveland. the nearest point on the Colorado and Southern (RaUroad) with Estes Park and make the run in 2~ hours." Watrous said that 173 votes were cast In the Park In the presidential election of 1908 and more than 4,COJ visUors spent from a few weeks to a few months there during the summer of 1909. A stage route had been established between the Park and Longmant In 1874, according to Watrous. Fourteen years earner, Joel Estes and his family had become the first white settlers In what was to become Estes Park. As more people began settling In the Park, It was only a question of time before a road would be built up Big Thompson Canyon. Isabella A. Bird, an Englishwoman who recorded her impressions of the Estes Park area In A Lady's We 1n the Rocky Moontalns, commented on the beauties of the Btg Thompson in 1873. A new edition of the adventurous Miss Blrd's book was copyrtghtt'd in 1960 and in 1973 a second printing of that edition was made. There are plenty of narrow backroads In the mountalns today, but it's hard for those who travel only the broad superhighways to realiZe the challenge of driving on the early mountain roads. MOST ESTIMATES of canyoo residents in the past are not specific. Warnon Wolaver, a n~tlve of Loveland who has been a Larimel"County commissioner since 1961, said the Big Thompson Canyon was pretty well developed In the 1920s with little .. development during the depression years I of the '305. A Big Thompson Canyon residents' association which met in 197tl to protest '!I trash at picnic sites along U.S. 34 and In the river represented about 60 families, a May I' 12, 1m, Coloradoan article said. Tht' association members said then that there wereover1I5Ofamllle~rJ~~~~' whose it:::t' T rty, tht' Flying Y, waa :.< the July 31 flood, had on about the canyon in ONE PERSON who recalls the Big Thompson Road as Jt was before It was paved or widened is Catherine Kob of 201 South Meldrum Street. She said. "I cer- tainly can remember when you had to turn out to let a car going the other direction go past. In those days - probably 1918 or 1920 - It was a one-car road with turnouts and you had to toot the horn at blind comers. You needed someone to watch for on. coming cars." She added, "Rock slides used to come down after heavy rains. I remember the late. WUlard M. Bennett saying, 'I don't =: ~:n;~! you'd do 1f you saw a big Another woman who has memories of travel over the Big Thompson Road In the early part of this century is Mrs. Howard G. Colwell of Lovt'land. She has a cabin on the North Fork nt'ar Drake which was bullt in 1909 by her parents, D. T. and Ullian B. Pulliam. They had bought two acres in 1908 overlooking the North Fork where it joins the Big TIlompson. Because the Pulllams had found a big log washed onto the flat land where they originally planned to build their cottage, North Pines, they picked a hill for the site of the cabin. The hllblde cabin w~ oot damaged in the recent flood. 1HE FAMILY'S first car was a ReQ and when they drove it up the canyon trom Loveland, there were turnouts to allow cars going in opposite d1reetlons to pass. Mrs. Colwell said horses always had the inside right of way, with cars relegated to the outside of the road. Mrs. Colwell said, "When we were children, we had to walk ahead to warn people with horse-drawn vehicles that a car waa coming." Another Loveland woman, Mrs. J. R. Miner, said the BIg Thompson road had only a gravel surface WltU a paved road was bollt in the 1930s. Her Big Thompson memories go back many years because her father, Frend Neville, bought Sylvandale Ranch In 1916 from a Denver lawyer, who . had n8rru::d the property. Neville turned It into a dude ranch. A story told by Kathryn Shipley of 1500 West Oak Street about a 1921 or '22 visit by Nebraska relatives gives some Idea of the tmpre.sslon out-of.state people had of Big Thompson Canyon. \liben one of the visitors didn't retum promptly from a hike, his family stopped someone comlng down the canyon and asked the driver to find out whether bears had gotten thehlker. Actually, Mrs. Shipley said, there were quite a few bea.rs in the canyon area WIlli dynamiting was started to wtt1en tne road. Then the bears took off for safer - or anyway quieter - country, thel930s. He said, "The Big Thompson Canyon Association was organized about 1936, the same year the present highway went through_ TIu' association met first by candlelight or lamplight In the old Forks Hotel (the Drake in recent years). 'Ille association 18 now more a social organi!ation, whlch Includes people outside the canyon who want to join, but at first It was a group of business people of the canyon. The canyon got electrtclty a few years alter the Ught plant went In In Loveland, probably In the late 19308. 'I\vo light plants at the Ha~ property had been run by gasoline and had storage batteries. Unpoved Big Thompson Cany~n Road at start of Narrows, late 19205 Reminder of the post The road being constructed in Big Thompson Canyon to t.emporarlly replace the one washed out in the July 31 flood may remind old.timers of the dirt road that ran through the canyon in the first two decades of this century. Bert Nelson of 101M North Tatt HIli Road has loaned the Coloradoan the ac- companying picture of the Big Thompson Road In the late 1920s at the start of the Narrows. Nelson, who then lived on a farm south of Hygiene, remembers traveling the t>.arly canyon road. He said the single.car road with tumouts was wid€ned In the late 1930s. bt the 19205, he said, travelers had to honk car horns to navigate turns saJ'ely. "There was a wreck once in awhile when someone forgot to honk,' 'lie added. AccordIng to his recollections, paving was !Itart.ed when the road waa widened. He remembers the old, road as being at the river's edge. When the road was widened, many ot the sharp curves were eliminated. ~. ~';:~ ,~)'t ~,,"',.,:" " . - .'G.~ .;-'.. ..~:_: .\JiJr. ~.~~ ;:Ii Iii~ :-: The some area, 0 half.century later Early floods were minor compared to Big Thompson Flood! That has been a dreaded word for northem Colorado mountain resldenll since they began aettllng In the area In the lut century. The word IIOUnded even more ominous to travelen on mount&ln roads, where a rampaging IItream could waah away a horae and buggy or a car. Even "dry" creekt could become a danger after a c1oudbul'llt. However, unW 1978 noods along the Big Thompeon River had done only comparatively mInor damage. 'Ille damage didn't seem minor, ot course, to thoee whose property was destroyed. County CommIssioner Warren Wolaver, a naUve of Loveland, gave date.! of three floods he rememben. He a1Ao aald, "There Is IOrne flooding periodlcally along the tooUUlJII 1lI1!8; IT UI lIVfJlOfUllrr€ flllIt ...,....~" He recalled a 1938 flood in Big ThomplOn Canyon which took out a small .ectlon of the road below Cedar Cove, but caused no big damage. According to hi. recollectiollll, the road wu .00 pauable after the flood and there waa no Iou of rue. lost In the area or the present Sunny Jim's candy store. He recalled that aome local rellef fundi were put together by neighbors but he didn't remember any action by the state government The next flood date he remembered wu 19M (he had become a comm18sloner In 1861) when "there wu hlgh water all over the country here." One flaBh flood that came out of Indian Cn,ek d.1d IIOme damagtl to roads. He thought that the flood that ruined the U.S. Gypsum plaster mW allO occurred In 19M. Bob Berllng, project manager for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation at Loveland recalled 194fi aa the year of the worst flooding prl.or to 1976. There was s. flow ot 7,600cublc feet of water per second then at the mouth d the canyon, or about a fifth of the July 31 flow. Mrs. Howard G. Colwell of Loveland, a summer resident of the Drake area !Iince 1a09, recalled pall. cloudburstl on the North Fork, but remembered R) other noods w1th Io8s of llte in Big ThompllOn CanyoJ. cloudbursll. She added that some bridges were washed out In the Big Thompson Canyon, probably in the 18201. The wooden brl.dges of the put went out more eul1y, she pointed out. Raymon Hayden of Johnstown, whose Flying Y property In Big Thompson Canyon waa virtually destroyed In the recent flood, remembers only one past flood when. water got Into a cabin on the Hayden property. That flood was caused by a cloodburst on CrosIer Mountain. Hayden fonnerly was principal of DUM, Washington and Rocky Ridge schools In the Fort ColUna area. His parenta, Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Hayden, operated the FlyIng Y before he and h1I w1fe jOined them In the buslne8S. HIe hopes for the canyon now an that "thln8s will go back the way they were." WOLA VER SAlD that In 1~1 Buckhorn Reservoir on Buckhorn Creek, a tributary of the B18 Thompaon, gave way causing high water In the creek and the Big Thompson. The old dam had become fllled wtth sUt. H. remembered that a famJIy wu caught at the junction of U.S. HIghway M and Glade Road and about three lives were loat. He thought there was no official total estimate on the fairly lImited 11101 property damage. Some bouies were Mrs. Randleman aaid there waa no road going up Poudre Canyon as far aa the Narrows then, althollgh there wu a wagon road about as far u the present waterworks. A Coloradoan artIcle ot Aug. 5, 1976, based on an interview w1th Catherine (Mrs. J. Evan) Roberta of L1vennore, included a reference to the flooda of lt04, The high water then washed away the Uvennore Hall and bridges all the way to Greeley, according to memories 01 old-timers. AND .JUST last year, the July 10, 1975, luue ct the Coloradoan reported, "Flooding near WeUlIIgton caused extelllllve crop damage and It looks llke it's going to cut loose again," Welllngton Pollee ChIef Gordon Lowe saJd. Boxelder and RawhJde creeks had flooded folIDwlng heavy rains and about 2Q homes north and ItO.lth at Welllngton were evacuated. The Welllngton sewer plant had been tlooded and was being repaired. County road and bridge crews were usesslng damage to Mlveral county roads caused by the flooding. Water 'MLI sWl standing on IOme of the roads and there was d1rt and . debris from the flood on all of them. Helen Day of 2t\2( Northeut Frontage Road, 8 retired Larimer County Department of Social Serv1ce8 llta!t member, had a comment to add on WeUlngk>n area floods. She sald, "I recall fluh floode on Boxelder Creek near Well1ngton - some nal good Ontll." "mERE HAVE been many floods In the canyon 8Ild the Big ThompllOn Road has been c101led, maybe far 24 hours," Catherine Kob of 201 South Meldnlm Stnet recalled. A ret1red member of the Colorado State University chemistry faculty, she hu been making trips on the canyon road for about six decades. "EVen during big snows," Ilhe Aid, "the canyon road has been closed only a few houl'll." Mrs. Joe R. Miner of Loveland, whoae father bought Sylvandale Ranch on the Big ThompllOn River In 1I1e, recalled theirhavlng a bridge go out once or twice from HE SAID at a recent meeting of canyon I'esldent.l, "We're not jUllt lntert'!sled In organ1z.1ng for our own selftllh interests. We should use this d1aa.ster to rebuUd for the best interests of all." TIiere have been northern Colorado noods in other areas besIdel the B18 Thompson, of course. Gertrude Randleman of 1080 Ea.st Ellz.abeth Street sald 01 one of them, "I remember when Chambers Lake went over Its banks In 1904. I looked tram the top of a hlll across the area from Harmony aoad near Fort Co1l1nl. The Cache la Poudre River was a mUe w1de. Geor~ R. Strau88 died from exposure after cllng1ng to a fence In the flood water all nIght near TImnath." - BETrY WOODWORTH